People Are Just Realizing That They’ve Been Burning Candles All Wrong

One of the most common ways people calm their exhausted minds is by setting a relaxing vibe at home with their scented candles. However, it's a bummer to see your votive candles forming a ring on the sides of their container, burning only through the center. But an X user who goes by the username  @kktweetshaha broke it to the internet that they might have been lighting their candles incorrectly all along. In her viral post, she quipped that there seems to be an “epidemic” of people not being able to use their beautifully scented candles efficiently. Specifically, she was talking about the mistake of letting memory rings form around the wick.

The X user ranted that her fiance was unaware of the proper way of using them and apparently blew out a candle in 30 minutes while she was not paying attention. She blamed her fiance for ruining the candle as well. “Just learned that my fiancé, who buys candles all the time and we literally always have candles burning, did not actually know how they work,” she wrote in the post. The post went viral and has been viewed over 6.1 million times after it was posted in March 2024. The overwhelming response from the internet warranted another viral post from the X user as most netizens were confused about the fact she was referring to.

“Realizing I’m dealing with an epidemic of candle clueless fools,” she declared in a follow-up post about the same subject. Answering several X users asking, the woman shared that if a candle is not burned for long enough on the first burn while melting the wax from edge to edge, it ends up creating a “memory ring.” This is apparently difficult to get rid of. “Once a candle has a memory ring, it will continue to tunnel and never burn all the way across,” she explained. She even added a picture of a memory ringed candle with a brief caption, “Bad.”

In yet another post, she followed up with the advice that people presume their candles are bad because they form memory rings. However, it is not the candles to be blamed instead. “Please know that it was a skill issue and your fault,” she wrote in a brazen statement. She suggested that because of this large candles must not be lit up during the night at bedtime since people will fall asleep soon without allowing the candle enough time to burn all the way to the edges. The X user noted that at least an hour of time is required per inch of a candle width to burn evenly.  

It was not long before netizens started chiming in with additional insights to add value to the viral post’s insinuation. One person (@jrumrman) pointed out, “Some brands burn better than others.” This comment caught her attention and replied, “Yes! Some waxes, nice ones, will melt faster. The result is less tunneling on average.” Similarly, another X user (@Joolia562) shared that some commercially available candles are “too wide to successfully burn across.” Therefore, they further employ the “tin foil hack” and trim the candle’s wicks to burn the wax evenly. Responding to that, the woman agreed that poorly made candles do not maintain a proper wick-to-candle space ratio.

Some other X users were delighted to have stumbled on the viral post and discovered the hack. “I’m 41 and had never heard of burn memory and just thought candles melted that way!" a person (@Squirrelchez) wrote, adding that they fixed all their candles using the trick. As much as people love to burn scented candles, it is also useful to maintain them for prolonged usage. 

You can follow @kktweetshaha on X for more interesting content.